


A Perfect Act

by Candyland



Series: Secret Agent Man [1]
Category: Magic Kaitou, Meitantei Conan | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candyland/pseuds/Candyland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For every action, there is a separate and opposite reaction. In Kaitou Kid's case, a decision can forever alter both the rules of the game and the roles of those who play it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Overture

_“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself_  
as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies,  
and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”  
\- Mohandas Gandhi 

A hospital, Nakamori had decided, was his least favorite place to be on the entire plant. For a place that was supposed to encourage healing, recovery, and recuperation, it were bland, sterile, and bordering on stifling. That was his opinion, at least.

He had come to this conclusion while sitting in one of those bland, sterile, stifling waiting rooms. The chair was uncomfortable, the magazines were old, and for a place that was spotless, he swore he could detect some musty scent amidst all the cleaners. The white walls, with a wide blue stripe painted about three feet above the floor, all around the perimeter of the room, gave him nothing to look at and nothing to distract him from the reason he was there.

And he really didn’t want to think about why he was there.

What a night.

Nakamori shifted in the uncomfortable chair for probably the fifteenth time in as many minutes and again glanced at the clock. Sure enough, not nearly enough time had passed to account for how long it felt like he had been sitting here. He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall.

What a night, indeed.

Between the collective events of the past two hours, the continuing wait, the uncertainty of what was to come, and the fact that his chair was causing him to lose feeling in some very private places, Nakamori Ginzo desperately wished that the night was over already. Mostly, though, everything that had happened over the past two hours.

That was the worst part.

That, and the phone call he had been forced to make a good twenty minutes ago. He would have gone to make the visit in person, and in hindsight, he really should have gone to make the visit in person. It was a horrible thing to do over the phone, but he had been instructed to go to the hospital and stay there until there was word.

Still, he had thought that the news might be best coming from him, so he had made the call anyway. The reaction that had come from the other end of the receiver was less than what he had expected, and yet somehow still managed to be enough to nearly bring him to his knees.

What a goddamned night.

It was as he was looking at the clock once again (and was dismayed to discover that only another two minutes had passed) that the waiting room door flew open and there was the sound of footsteps coming towards him. They seemed to slide on the polished tile floor.

“Ginzo-san!”

He knew who it was before he heard his name; the voice was merely a confirmation of something he already knew. Both hands went to his knees to push himself out of the chair. He nearly went straight down and onto the floor as blood rushed back to a few areas that had been somewhat deprived for a time. Still, he managed to stay upright and hobble towards the new arrival. “I’m so sorry—”

“Where is he?” Kuroba Meimi asked hurriedly. There were none of her usually pleasantries or manners. Her appearance was uncharacteristically disheveled, her hair a mess, and her clothing showed signs of having been thrown on quickly and without care for matching.

“They haven’t told me anything,” he said, running one hand through his own hair.

She closed her eyes for what seemed like a long moment. Several breaths passed, deep and steady, in and out, before she opened them again and regarded him with the thinest veneer of calm he had ever seen another person wear. How she could look at him like that, as though nothing were wrong, escaped him. It was only her eyes that betrayed anything.

Nakamori found it very difficult to look at her eyes in that state, but it was impossible to look away.

“Since my son is not available to give you any sort of explanation,” she said, her voice thin and strained from the effort of staying calm, “I suppose it falls to me, doesn’t it.” It was not really a question.

“I…” He nearly refused, but realized that they were probably going to end up sitting and waiting for quite some time longer. And when he let himself wonder about it, he was ravenously curious about this whole mess of a situation. Hearing the story might at least help him understand some of it. “If it’s not too difficult for you to discuss right now, Meimi-san.”

He was proud of that response.

They sat in the farthest corner of the waiting room, where they could speak in hushed tones and not be disturbed, and where they could see if anyone else entered. By some miracle there was no one else in there. Anyone else who had been injured during the events of the evening would be at a different hospital. That had been a conscious decision on the part of those involved.

That was part of the story he would have to tell Meimi-san. But best to let her go first.

They sat in silence for a moment before she began.

**_-o-_ **

_The gunmen had returned._

_And Nakamori had been stupid enough to let himself wind up back here._

_…all right, that wasn’t entirely true. Between the bullets whizzing through the air, the haze from a smoke bomb (he wasn’t at all sure who had deployed it in the chaos), and the bodies and shouting, he had gotten a bit disoriented. Then he had heard his superior’s voice—of course the higher-ups would be on the scene tonight._

_They had spotted Kid disappearing behind the building. Presumably to avoid the gunfire._

_Somehow, that didn’t seem right to Nakamori. Kid was the sort who would rather get shot himself than see someone else fall prey to an assassin’s bullet. He wouldn’t just run off and leave the Taskforce to perish in a hail of fire. But orders were orders, and he followed them._

_Nakamori, along with his two superiors, made their way around to the back of the building. He was vaguely aware that he was being followed; a glance back proved that Hakuba Saguru was hot on his heels. He didn’t bother telling the boy to go back. Wasted breath, wasted effort, and it certainly was no safer back there with the rest of them._

_They skidded around the corner._

_Kaitou Kid was facing a man in black. A man wielding a gun, with his back to the officers._

_There were no smiles, no smirks, no teasing words. Kid looked somewhere between furious and frightened, and the gunman’s expression was no less than outright murderous as he brandished his weapon at the thief. They were speaking to each other in harsh, barking tones._

_Kid, calling the other man Snake and demanding that the man in black call off the guns._

_Snake, demanding Kid surrender the jewel and threatening all sorts of things._

_And then Kid seemed to notice the handful of people who had pursued him this far._

_What happened next all happened very, very quickly. Even after it had all passed, Nakamori still found himself trying to figure out exactly what had happened and how things had happened. But the answers were nowhere to be found._

**-o-**

Meimi began her story softly, slowly, and with that same calm. “This whole thing is really a story of things that were not,” she said, a strange opening. “I doubt much of this will surprise you at all at this point, Ginzo-san, but Kaito was not the original Kid. Toichi’s death was not an accident. Toichi did not tell Kaito about Kid, and Kaito did not tell me.”

“Toichi…”

“He started this whole thing. He was happy with his magic, and with Kaito and I. But you knew Toichi. He liked to push the envelope. I think when he started this whole thing, it was sort of a joke,” she sighed, her tone growing fond. “I think he once mentioned it as being the ultimate performance. I was never entirely sure if he was serious about that or not.”

“I guess I have a little trouble understanding what would drive an otherwise upstanding citizen, celebrity, and family man to become an internationally wanted jewel thief,” Nakamori said. No point in not being honest about it.

“An adrenaline rush. Excitement. There are plenty of reasons, but suffice to say that he did it. He went out of his way to make a mockery of everything that was known, established, and accepted about criminals and thieves. And he was good at it.”

It took him a second to recognize that note in her voice: pride. The realization left him boggled.

“You know about the exploits of the time. What you don’t know is what ended them,” Meimi went on. Now her tone turned sour. “Malfunctioning equipment…it’s insulting. Everyone knew that Toichi was borderline obsessive about checking things before a show. He would have sooner pulled a trick from the line-up then try to perform it when something was not working properly.”

“That never did set well with me, but the investigation—“

“Turned up a problem. I’m aware,” she said. “I’m also aware of something the investigation left out. The part that was ruled the cause of the fire? Both Jii and Toichi checked it before the show. It was fine when the curtain went up. Sometime in the interim, something was messed with. And…well, you know what happened.” Her voice finally cracked.

Oh heavens, did he know what had happened. He remembered that show all too well, watching Toichi perform the impossible as if it were nothing. The loud crack. The flames erupting from the center of the stage. The realization that this was not part of the show. The panicked screams of both audience members and sirens. The remains that barely seemed to be human anymore…

“So it was murder.” Ginzo didn’t know why he even needed further assurances on that matter.

“I did not tell Kaito about his father’s, ah, night job,” she went on, steady once again. “You know how much Kaito idolized his father. He still does. It destroyed him when Toichi died. And he was so young. It was best to just let him think that it was an accident.” She looked off to the side. “There was no reason to let him know that someone intentionally took his father away.”

It brought to mind another memory Ginzo wished he didn’t have. Aoko coming home one day, two weeks after Toichi’s funeral, in tears because Kaito still wouldn’t smile at school and she couldn’t figure out how to make him feel better.

Aoko…

He had called her and left her a message, telling her where he was and that he probably would not be home tonight. He’d reassured her that he was fine before he’d ended the call. It wasn’t until after he had hung up that he realized she was going to know something was wrong when she found herself walking to school alone in the morning.

She was out with her friend Keiko, he knew, but he eventually called back and left a second message.

“How did Kaito wind up in this situation?” Nakamori pressed.

“When he was seventeen, he unconvered the secret, all on his own,” Meimi said. “He learned of his father’s other identity. It was around the time that the Kid reports began resurfacing. That was not Kaito, for the record.”

“You know who it was.” Again, not a question.

“I do, but I will not say.”

He let it go for the moment. “Why did Kaito go out there, then?”

“As I said before, he never actually told me anything. The silly boy…” again, her voice cracked, and again, she quickly got herself back under control. “I was actually planning on having a conversation with him about that. So I don’t know exactly the reason he went that night. But the fact stands that he did, and he learned the truth. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Ginzo fell silent, processing.

“This is the abridged version of events,” Meimi added. “Only Kaito can fill in the rest of the details.”

“I don’t suppose he’ll be willing to do that.”

“…you might end up being surprised, Ginzo-san.”

“Dad?”

A third person had appeared in the doorway. Nakamori quickly stood up. “Aoko.”

She was still dressed up a bit from her night out. “Dad? Meimi-san?” She looked back and forth between the two adults with alternating concern and fear. “…what’s going on?”

**_-o-_ **

_The man in black, Snake. He seemed to realize that there were other people around a mere second after Kaitou Kid did. He turned and stared at them all in visible surprise; he actually looked startled that they had been discovered._

_Nakamori took one look at the man’s eyes, and was told by his cop’s intuition that he was looking at a killer. All the pieces fell together to give him a theory as to precisely who this Snake person was, and why he would be arguing with Kaitou Kid. It was not a pleasant theory, but then again, those who would open fire on police officers and civilians were generally not what one would call pleasant people._

_Snake stared at them. In that split second, it was like he was sizing them up and making a decision. A sickening grin crossed his face as he whipped around and lifted his gun and took aim._

_Right at Nakamori Ginzo._

_It was one of those situations where the entire world seemed to be moving in slow motion. Nakamori’s eyes could actually follow the motion of the man’s finger squeezing the trigger, the path of the bullet as it sped out of the gun’s barrel and towards him, followed by another and another. And he could hear a sound like several balloons popping in the distance._

_There was a flash of white—_

_And suddenly his arms were full of a heavy weight that nearly knocked him over; instinctively he grabbed onto that weight and held on, supporting it. He felt silk against his hands and heard a shout and saw nothing but white and red._

_There were shouts that he barely heard as he realized that he was holding Kaitou Kid. Now, as he had done figuratively so many times in the past, the phantom thief quite literally slipped through the Inspector’s nerveless fingers and slid, almost gracefully, to end up in a heap on the ground._

_He twisted as he fell, revealing growing stains marring the white and blue across his chest._

**-o-**

“He looks like hell,” Nakamori said bluntly.

No one argued. It was a statement of fact.

They had only just wheeled Kaito out of surgery, and the doctor’s words were still ringing in their ears, hollow and more painful than any injury. _“We’ve done everything we can,”_ the man had said. _“If he makes it through the night, we’ll know more. I’m sorry.”_

They had put Kaito in a room with an observation window, for various reasons. Nakamori, Aoko, and Meimi were standing before that window, looking in at the unmoving form swathed in pristine white sheets on the bed.

Kaito didn’t even look like himself. There was none of the vibrant energy or mischievous enthusiasm. He looked wane, as pale as the sheets draped over his body. His skin had taken on a faint gray hue. There were machines all over the place, with sensors and electrodes everywhere. An oxygen mask covered the lower half of his face; the steady rising and falling of his chest, though, was reassuring.

Aoko had let out a little cry when she saw him, the most reaction she had shown since they had told her the truth. She had listened to the story quietly, her expression growing more and more drawn with each new point. By the time they had finished she was pale and silent. It was not quite what they had expected from one as fiery as Aoko, especially when they told her how he had been shot.

“If he makes it through the night, he might pull through,” Meimi said in an echo of the doctor’s words.

Nakamori was about to reply when he heard a stern voice saying his name. He knew who it was before he turned around: one of the higher-up had returned, and his presence was being requested. He waved his hand to let them know that he would be there momentarily, and turned back to his friend and daughter. “I need to go update my superiors.”

Meimi nodded. She had already looped an arm around Aoko’s shoulders in a comforting maternal gesture. The comfort was doubtlessly mutual. As Nakamori left, they went into the room to say hello to a young man who probably could not hear their voices.

“How is he?” Takahashi asked after they had stepped into a side room, out of immediate earshot.

“I spoke with the doctors,” Nakamori said, a bit surprised at the almost casual manner of the question. “They managed to retrieve the bullets and patched him up as best they could. But there was a lot of damage. Internal organs were hit. They’ve done all they can. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if he makes it through the night.”

“I see…” his superior seemed to mull this over before he spoke again. “Stay here. Keep monitoring the situation, and keep us updated on any developments. We’re trying to decide on a course of action.”

Again, Nakamori found himself started. “A course of action?”

“There will be a meeting at the precinct probably in the next two hours to discuss the matter,” Takahashi said. “We’ll send someone to relieve you at that time.” He glanced towards the door. “Keibu, correct me if I am wrong, but you know that boy, don’t you.” It was not truly a question.

“He’s my daughter’s friend, sir.”

“…how is Aoko-chan holding up?”

“As well as can be expected.”

The meeting ended on that note, and Nakamori returned to the hospital room. Meimi and Aoko were sitting beside the bed, as close to him as was permitted. Neither spoke; the only sound was the steady beeping of the heart monitor.

“No response,” Meimi said. Her voice cracked.

A doctor appeared in the doorway, a clipboard under one arm. “Kuroba-san?” he said apologetically. “I’m very sorry, but I need to speak with you for a moment.” She nodded and followed; Ginzo accompanied her, leaving Aoko alone with Kaito.

**_-o-_ **

_“Sorry, Keibu. Not lettin’ ‘em take anyone else’s dad…”_

_The soft voice pierced the chaos, reaching Nakamori’s ears. How strange. He knew that voice. That sounded like Kaito-kun, but Kaito-kun was not here. There was only an injured thief on the ground—_

_Who was moving._

_Ginzo put one hand on the thief’s shoulder. Kid’s hat had tipped off his head and was rolling in a circle across the ground a meter or so away. The only thing protecting his identity was a monocle, and as he watched, Kid shifted and actually removed it himself. He closed his fist around the small ring of metal and glass like it was some infinitely precious treasure, something he could not let go of._

_Even in death._

_He pressed on Kaitou Kid’s shoulder and rolled the world’s greatest thief onto his back._

_Kuroba Kaito was looking up at him with the faintest of smiles._

_Before Ginzo could say a single world to his daughter’s best friend—no, his greatest quarry—a shout from behind him made him jump and glance back over his shoulder. He waved and turned back._

_…Kaito was no longer wearing the infamous white suit. Kaitou Kid’s uniform had vanished, leaving the teenager clad in the same sort of clothes any other boy his age would wear: jeans, sneakers, and a black sweatshirt. Even Kid’s hat had disappeared from the pavement beside them._

_Like this, he could have been anyone._

_But he wasn’t just anyone._

_Nakamori watched as the now-unconscious young man was loaded into an ambulance and rushed off to a hospital. Kaito was not in good shape, and it was possible that he might not even make it to the hospital with those injuries._

_…not just anyone at all._

**-o-**

Aoko reached out tentatively and touched his hand. He felt so cold.

…but wasn’t that how she had described him that once at the amusement park, right to his face? Cold like ice cream. He had laughed it off and responded that ice cream was also sweet. She had smiled; it was an argument she couldn’t quite deny, even when he annoyed her.

How could this be? There was no way that this pale, lifeless person could be the same young man who flipped her skirt every morning and teased her mercilessly and then would turn around and give her a present just because he had seen something that made him think of her.

And there was no way her mind could reconcile either of those images with the moonlight thief who made a spectacle of the police and did the impossible and kept her father from her…

Meimi-san had told her why. They had told her the entire story, all the reasons and logic behind Kaito’s actions. But that wasn’t enough. She wanted to hear it all from Kaito’s lips, in Kaito’s voice. She wanted Kaito to tell her the truth himself. Why that would make such a difference to her, she did not know.

He would wake up. He had better wake up so she could yell at him.

…and she needed to thank him.

To hear the story as her father had told it, it was between the two of them. Kaito had chosen to die himself rather than let her father be hurt or killed. She was still trying to decide whether that one act was enough to redeem so many lies.

In the end, she realized she would probably not make those decisions until she saw his eyes again.

Until then, she would wait and watch and wonder.

**_-o-_ **

_“A pleasure as always, Nakamori-keibu.”_

_Even as he stood, hunched over and panting for air from the chase, Nakamori still found he had it in him to muster up a glare for the one who had addressed him. The one he had pursued all the way up here._

_Kaitou Kid, International Criminal 1412, was sitting on the knee-high concrete barrier that ran around the perimeter of the rooftop. His pose was relaxed and far more suited to someone lounging around in their own living room than a wanted man facing his most dogged pursuer. “I can tell you’re thrilled.”_

_The police officer straightened and tried to pretend that he wasn’t still out of breath. Maybe Aoko had been onto something when she had decided that he should stop smoking, and thus had gotten Kaito-kun to start hiding his cigarettes._

_“You and your men were on top of their game tonight, Nakamori-keibu,” Kid said in that smooth tenor of his. “But I will admit that I am pleased that there should be a moment for just the two of us.”_

_“…coming from you, that sounds sort of creepy,” Nakamori shot back._

_It was odd, but the laughter that came from the white-clad figure almost felt like a reward. “I assure you that my intentions are completely pure.” Though his face was obscured by shadows, both of the night and the ones cast by the brim of his hat, there was the sudden sense that his expression had grown more serious. “You do have my word on that.”_

_“What exactly are your intentions?” Nakamori asked. Getting the thief in handcuffs was, strangely enough, the furthest thing from his mind. “Aside from making yourself into a public spectacle.”_

_“You must admit, I’m quite good at that.”_

_“I think I know that better than anyone.”_

_Another chuckle through the relative darkness, followed by a pause before Kid spoke again. “With regards to my intentions, good sir…well, I suppose it would be easiest to say that in many ways, my intentions are the same as yours.”_

_That stopped the Inspector cold. “The same? You’re a criminal. I’m a police officer. We’re on opposites sides of the law!” That niggling little voice in the back of his mind reminded him that Kaitou Kid was certainly no ordinary criminal, but he ignored it._

_Kid spoke again, a hint of a smile in his very voice. “Have you ever heard the old saying about there being more than one way to skin a cat? This is one of those situations.” He stood then, rising up to his full height. “At the most basic level, you and I are both after the same thing, Nakamori-keibu.” White-clad shoulders moved up and down in a shrug. “We just have very different ways of going about accomplishing those goals.”_

_“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what those goals are.” It was a statement, not a question._

_Kaitou Kid lifted one foot and stepped up onto the concrete barrier, now standing on the spot where a moment ago he had been sitting. “I have to keep some mystery about me. It wouldn’t be any fun at all if I gave you all the answers.” He did seem to hesitate. “But really? We’re on the same side, Keibu. If things were different, you would understand that.”_

_A step backwards, and Kid was gone._

**-o-**

After his replacement came, and he was relieved to go to the meeting at the precinct, Nakamori pondered over that memory the entire drive. It was from a heist months ago, where he had actually managed to track Kaitou Kid all the way to the rooftop.

He couldn’t quite say why it had come to him as he climbed into his car, but it had given him an idea.

One that could either save them all, or cost him his job.


	2. Performance

“You know,” Kaito said delicately, “whenever I heard anyone mention limbo or any sort of space between life and death or whatever, I never imagined it would look like this.” He sipped from the bottle in his hand and looked around for the fourth time in as many minutes. “I guess I pictured something a little more, I dunno…serious? Definitely darker.”

Across the table, Kuroba Toichi smiled. “It used to be a lot less colorful here, but folks were getting all bent out of shape over having to wait for either their life or their afterlife in what was essentially a hospital waiting room. Many who came here had had quite enough of hospitals.”

There had been a tunnel, and a light. But Kaito had been nearly bowled over to come to the other end of that tunnel and into the light to find his father sitting there at a table, waiting for him in what appeared to be a high-class bar.

“So this is Limbo?” Kaito asked, sipping once again from the bottle. He could really think of worse ways to spend the time than sitting at a table with his father, enjoying a beer, of all things.

“Limbo is the most common name for it, yes,” Toichi said.

“Are there other areas?”

“There are. But I hope you’ll never have to see any of them,” Toichi’s expression turned grim. “Beyond here lies the Shadowland. The numbers of souls who have gone into the Shadowland and returned from it…well, I can count the ones I’m aware of on one hand.” He glanced down at his own bottle. “Past that is what most would call the Afterlife.”

“I don’t think I want to go to the Shadowland, Dad,” Kaito said honestly, then decided to change the subject. He didn’t want to think about what was in that place that would make that look appear on his father’s face. He held up his half-empty beer bottle. “So should I be drinking this? I’m underage.”

That earned a laugh. “You choose now to be concerned with rules?”

“Call it a last-minute crisis of conscience,” Kaito shot back.

“Speaking of which, would you like to know how things are progressing in the Living World?” Toichi asked. One long finger trailed moisture in small patterns across the tabletop. “You’ve caused quite a stir, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Kaito blinked, surprised. “You know what’s going on?”

“I took a look while you were getting a second drink,” Toichi admitted. “I’m sure you’re not surprised, but your little secret is out. Ginzo-san knows who you are, and he’s not terribly happy about it. Your mother has been filling him in on the details, though, and that’s calmed him down for the moment.”

“No surprise there,” Kaito murmured.

“He did, however, manage to get our old buddy Snake into custody. Our favorite gunman is currently cooling his heels in jail. The charges will stick,” Toichi said. The question of whether or not Snake would survive that long behind bars, whether from internal or external forces, was left hanging in the air between them, unvoiced and unanswered.

“That’s good, at least,” Kaito said, genuinely relieved.

“You took a total of four bullets in the torso. Two hit internal organs. The only reason you haven’t gone past Limbo yet is because there was already an ambulance at the scene as a standard precaution for the heist. So you received medical treatment almost immediately,” Toichi said, rattling off everything in a conversational tone that seemed at odds with the subject matter. “That little snap of the fingers you pulled off did do you a favor, though. As of right now, only a handful of people know the truth.”

That took Kaito by surprise. “What? I thought it’d be all over the news by now.”

“They have not yet made a public announcement. They’re waiting,” Toichi went on.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“There is one other thing that you should know, Kaito,” Toichi said.

“What’s that?”

“Aoko-chan.”

Kaito froze at her name, the bottle poised halfway to his lips. Then he all but slammed it back down to the table and blurted out in a hurry, “What about Aoko? Is she okay?”

“She was not hurt, if that’s what you mean,” Toichi said. “But she knows, Kaito. She knows the truth.”

“…how’s she taking it?”

“Well…” Toichi hesitated. “…she hasn’t left your side since they let her in the room.”

Kaito’s eyes widened. “What?”

“She’s keeping vigil over you. If you wake up, there might still be a chance for the two of you.”

There was a moment of silence between them before Kaito ventured another question. “Is she crying?”

“No. She isn’t.”

“…are you lying to me, Dad?”

Toichi didn’t answer.

**_-o-_ **

Nakamori was pleased with himself. He managed not to quake like a leaf under the stern gazes of his superiors. What he was about to do could potentially cost him his job, but it was an idea that had been biting at him ever since the conversation he’d had with Kaitou Kid on the rooftop that night.

He recounted that story to the higher-ups, who listened carefully. He recalled another few incidents where Kid had handed the police gift-wrapped criminals, ranging from murderers to less scrupulous thieves. He told them what he now knew of the identity and motivations behind the legendary thief. All the cards he held were laid on the table as carefully as any poker dealer’s. When he finished, he looked at them expectantly.

In light of everything, an official statement had yet to be made regarding the capture of Kaitou Kid and the fate of the young man. A few of the less than scrupulous news programs on late-night television were already starting the rumor mill going, claiming that this was going to be some sort of cover up and that International Criminal 1412 was dead, possibly on the wrong end of a police officer’s gun…

It was sickening.

The question was broached, then: what were they to do? Wait until there was official word on Kid’s condition? Learn whether he would live or die before making a statement? Go ahead and announce his capture to the news media? No matter what they did, there was almost literally blood in the water, and the media sharks had gotten a whiff of it.

Time for Nakamori to essentially sign his own termination papers. “I had a thought, sir.”

Three pairs of eyes fixed on him with curious gazes, and he was prodded to continue.

“I’ve told you about times in the past when Kid has assisted the police force in the capture of criminals far more dangerous than himself,” he explained, keeping himself tightly under control. Respect, temperament, no emotions clouding his thinking. “And I got to thinking about how it is that he could come by the necessary information to help us.”

“Go on…” Encouragement. They were interested in what he was saying. That was a good sign.

“I tried a few lines of reasoning, and the strongest of those lines told me that perhaps he was able to get what he needed from other criminals. Those who would not share what they know with the police, but who might be willing to breathe a word here or there to others of their own kind,” Nakamori pressed on. Sound professional. It makes a person less likely to be outright branded a crackpot.

There was now real and growing interest behind their stony gazes.

“Sirs, we have the world’s greatest thief in a very unique situation. Should he survive, his fate lies in our hands. However, the question still stands as to whether or not he would consent to be held. He could very well escape, which would not make any of us look terribly efficient.”

“What are you proposing?”

The groundwork for his idea had been laid. “I highly doubt that he wants to go to prison or to have his family’s name dragged through the mud. And none of us want to deal with the backlash should he escape. And it has been established that he shares an interest with us in keeping the streets free of those more dangerous then himself. I will understand if you call me crazy for this, but why not find a way to use the situation to the advantage of everyone involved?”

“I take it you’ve thought of a way to do this?”

“I have.” Time to take the plunge and dive headfirst into the fire. “Offer him a deal.”

Silence for a moment. “What kind of a deal?”

As he laid out the rest of his idea, he was relieved that the feeling of wary interest generally did not seem to waver, although one of them did not seem totally convinced that this was a good idea at all, and actually outright questioned Nakamori’s sanity and motives, citing his personal connection to the boy (conveniently ignoring the fact that the young man in question had a name) as his reasoning.

Still, they listened intently to what he was saying as he laid out his thoughts on the matter. He was closest to the case; he knew more about Kaitou Kid than almost anyone else, and he truly had the most to gain by announcing Kid’s capture. So his words, he was pleasantly surprised to find, carried a bit more weight than he thought they would.

To his own mind, though, it was a matter of the best possible outcome for all of them, and the outcome that had the potential to accomplish the greatest amount of good for the general public. And as he even stated to his superiors during his impromptu presentation, was that not the ultimate goal of any member of law enforcement: to protect the people?

In the end, he suspected that was the statement that sold them on the idea.

By the end of the meeting, a full five hours later, and after much debate on the issue, an agreement on the matter had been reached. As the sun was finally rising over the city, Nakamori was sent back to the hospital with a folder of paperwork under his arm. Now he just had to wake for Kaito to wake up.

**_-o-_ **

“She hasn’t moved yet,” Meimi observed quietly. Beyond the room’s observation window, Aoko was still sitting beside Kaito’s bed. One of his limp hands was held carefully between both of her own, as best as she could probably manage with the number of machines and wires hooked up to him.

Jii sighed. He looked exhausted as she felt. “His father in heaven will never forgive me for this…” He glanced around. “Where is Nakamori-keibu? I would have thought he would be here.”

“He was called to the station for a meeting on the situation,” Meimi said. “I wonder what kind of meeting they would need to have on this. But they did catch Kaitou Kid. I imagine they’re probably writing the press release and congratulating each other…” Her tone grew bitter as she trailed off. Criminal or not, that was her son.

Kaito looked away, both unwilling and unable to see anymore. It hit too hard in a place he didn’t like to acknowledge more than was necessary because it hurt too bloody much. “That’s enough, I’ve seen enough. Let’s just go back to the table, okay?” It was weakness, and he hated showing it in front of anyone, especially his father, but he just could not stand seeing his mother like that.

She was holding herself together, just as she had when his father had died and just as she had whenever any crisis arose. That was her way. She was one of the strongest people in the world, as far as Kaito was concerned, and in some ways, it made her iron-willed self control almost more painful to watch.

Toichi said nothing about his outburst, nor did he comment on Kaito’s need to walk away from what was happening in the Living World at the moment. But before they could move towards the table, they heard a loud beep from the scene around his mother and Jii. The scream of a machine.

And then the world changed.

It was like a whip-pan from a movie, like the scenery around him was pulled aside, dragging a new, different set in around him. The warm, dim lighting of the bar gave way to a darker area illuminated only by an eerie silver-white glow, like a dark night brightened solely by the light of the moon. The room was empty; he mentally called it a room, although he could see no walls and no end to the floor. It seemed to go on forever around him, vanishing into the shadows.

“Dad?” Kaito said tentatively, suddenly afraid that he would receive no response from the man who had only a moment ago been standing directly behind him. The idea of being alone in this place was one that frightened him in a way he could not label or describe.

“I’m still here.”

Kaito nearly went to his knees in relief, but this time he regained control of himself and his Poker Face. “Dad, what is this awful place?” The more he looked around this empty, endless space, the more he felt like he was some character in a horror movie, trapped in the monster’s lair with the creature just around the corner, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on him.

His question then became one of the monster’s nature. Somehow, in this place between the worlds of the living and the dead, he was fairly sure he could guess exactly what the bad guy was.

Toichi’s voice was oddly strained. “This is the Shadowland, Kaito. You’ve taken a turn for the worst.”

One of Kaito’s hands unconsciously reached towards his heart. He was only mildly surprised to find no pulse beating beneath his ribcage. No heartbeat. No breath being drawn. This was a place where such things were superfluous and unnecessary to the beings who temporarily dwelled there.

Odd, though, how a heart that did not beat could still ache so much.

“…am I going to die?” Kaito asked. Now his voice cracked, and now he did not care.

“That is not for me to decide, son,” Toichi said. He had moved to stand beside Kaito, making no noise on the dark floor. “You know what I would choose if I had any say in the matter. But it’s the choice of a power far higher than either of us.”

Again, Kaito felt that sensation of being kicked in the stomach. If he had been breathing, he probably would have choked. Suddenly all he wanted was to hold onto someone, something, anyone or anything who didn’t mind his terror. Not at the idea of dying, though. He had never truly been afraid of death.

He had always feared the side effects of death. Namely, the ones he would leave behind.

A hand touched his shoulder. Before he knew what was happening, Kaito spun and grabbed onto the owner of that hand: his own father. He was clinging and babbling, and he knew it, and he didn’t care. “Dad, I can’t leave Mom behind. And Aoko…dammit, I can’t die, not now.”

Blessedly strong arms were around his shoulders. Toichi did not seem to mind the panic at all. “If you keep thinking that and fighting, then they’ll have a harder time taking you away. Fight for your life, Kaito. There are those who beat the odds. You just can’t let go.”

And just as suddenly as the world around them had changed, it changed back. They were back in the warm lights of the bar. They were out of the Shadowland and back in Limbo.

Kaito looked around. “What just happened?”

“They must have gotten you stabilized again,” Toichi said, relieved. His tone quickly grew somber. “The doctor said that if you make it through the night, you’ll have a better chance of pulling through. But you’re not out of the woods yet, though. To truly get out of here and survive, you need to wake up.”

“I don’t even know how to get back to my own body,” Kaito said.

“There’s a way, Kaito,” Toichi assured him. “We just have to wait for it.”

**_-o-_ **

Meimi stared at Ginzo in shock. “What did you just say?”

“I said that they’re not going to announce Kaitou Kid’s capture yet,” Nakamori told her in a hushed voice. “My superiors are waiting on something before they make a statement to the media.”

“What are they waiting for?” she gaped.

“First he needs to wake up. How is he?” the inspector asked.

Meimi looked down. “Something happened a few minutes ago. They said he’s stable now, but…” Her eyes looked odd now, and there was an unmistakable wetness on her eyelashes.

Ginzo was about to say something, to try and offer some words of comfort, but she lifted her head and spoke before he could get a word out. “He might have done some things that others would not have considered to be good. He might not always have necessarily been a good boy. But he was a wonderful son, and no one will ever be able to tell me otherwise.”

He nodded. “I know, Meimi-san. I know.”

Another glance through the window proved that Aoko’s head had slumped forward to rest on the edge of the hospital bed. The two adults exchanged looks and quietly entered the room. They had been keeping their own council outside so as to leave her to her vigil. Neither was surprised to find that she had fallen asleep with her head against the bed.

“Poor dear…” Meimi murmured, carefully touching the girl’s hair. Nakamori already had his jacket off and was draping it carefully over her shoulders. “Ginzo, what do you think will happen between these two if…when Kaito wakes up?” She quickly corrected herself. Her son would wake up. There was no room for any other alternative.

Ginzo looked down at his daughter again. She had been there all night, sitting in that chair, speaking softly to someone who could not hear her words. He had seen her mouth moving, but had not been able to hear the actual words. Aoko did not want Kaito to die, and she cared enough to sacrifice her own well-being to keep watch over him. That had to mean something. “We’ll know when he wakes up, and not a moment before. After that, it’s entirely up to them.”

**_-o-_ **

Kaito was afraid.

There had been two more flickers, two more moments when he had been whipped into that dark place his father called the Shadowland. And each stay in that room had been a bit longer than the one before it. He hated that place, cast in darkness and moonlit shadows, where hope seemed to drain away with the light. Each time he passed back to Limbo, he felt shakier than he had before.

He could guess what that meant. “Dad, I’m dying…” he finally said as he slumped back into his chair at the table where they had been enjoying a beer not too long before. How much time had passed, though? He had no sense of the passage of time, no sense of hours or minutes, days or nights. He could have been sitting there for a week, for all he knew.

“You are not going to die, Kaito,” Toichi said. “I absolutely forbid you to give up. You need to fight until you either wake up or they personally come to take you away.” It was the harshest tone Kaito had ever heard from his father, in life or in death.

“I don’t know how to fight this, Dad!” Kaito burst out. “I’m getting yanked between two different places with zero control over anything. That Shadowland place is the single freakiest place I have ever been and the thought of getting dragged back in there again without any warning or way of getting out scares the crap out of me, and I really don’t care who knows it! How am I supposed to fight for my life like this?” He stopped there, panting, and belatedly realizing that his hands had clenched themselves into fists.

Toichi stared at his son for a moment before speaking again. “Do you want to live?”

The question caught Kaito off-guard. “What?”

“Consider all the facts. If you live, you could potentially be in a great deal of trouble. You’ll probably go to jail. Some bridges might be burned. But if you die, your mother will be alone. Aoko-chan will be alone. A lot of questions will never be answered. Think about everything, the whole sum of your life. And then answer the question,” Toichi said. His tone was conversational, like he was speaking about something as mundane as the price of bread. “Do you want to live?”

Kaito looked down at the floor as he tried to process everything. His entire life, his friendships, his mother, his mission to avenge his father…he knew he should have been able to say yes without any hesitation at all. He didn’t want to leave his mother behind, and he did not fear going to prison; that had long since been accepted as a potential risk. So what was stopping him?

…but he really didn’t have to ask himself that question. He already knew the answer.

Aoko.

But he realized that putting her at the top of the equation sealed his decision with ease. Her finding out that he was Kaitou Kid had to have broken her heart. Yet she was sitting there beside him, watching over him and waiting to find out if he would live or die. So she still cared.

If he died, he would just break her heart again.

He glanced back up. There was no judgment in his father’s face. Just understanding, like he knew what the hurdles slowing him down were and was just waiting for Kaito to jump over them and reach the choice at the finish line.

“I want to live.”

Toichi nodded. “That’s the right choice. And Kaito?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s morning.”

It took a moment for the implications to hit Kaito. If he made it through the night, the doctors thought he could survive. If dawn had come to the world of the living, then maybe, just maybe…

He felt himself smile. That was really all there was to it, wasn’t it? A willingness to go on in the face of what could be. Deciding the joys of living were stronger than the pain of life, and that the pain would be more bearable than the pain caused by death. Whatever his own troubles, they were less important to him than his mother and Aoko and the pain he had caused them, continued to cause them.

“…will I remember any of this, Dad?” he asked quietly. The room around him was starting to blur. The barstools, the tables, and the glasses were melting into each other in oddly shaped lumps of brown, black, and silver. But it wasn’t getting any darker. Quite the opposite, really. The dim, warm light was growing stronger. He was leaving Limbo, and not for the Shadowland this time.

Kaito was disappointed when Toichi shook his head, but only half-surprised. “I’m afraid not. Not clearly, at least. You might recall some parts, vaguely, and I’m sure you’ll have something to say about a tunnel with the beckoning forms of loved ones long since dead, but that’s it.” Was it Kaito’s imagination, or did his father look a little bit sad at that?

“I don’t want to forget this,” Kaito said.

“That’s just how it is. The rules were made by those more powerful than either of us. No sense in dwelling on it. Besides, Kaito,” Toichi smiled, “it’s not like you’ve forgotten me, have you?”

“Of course I haven’t!” Kaito half-shouted, indignant at the very thought.

The room continued to run together into lines and shapes like blurring watercolors, running into one another and blending into a shade of brown that grew lighter and bleached towards white as the light continued to brighten.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” Toichi said.

Kaito bit his lip, then took two steps forward to hug his father, who seemed to have been waiting for it and promptly held onto him in return. He had been wanting to do that since he had first wandered into Limbo and found Dad waiting for him, but it wasn’t until now, when he was sure he was about to leave, that he actually had the nerve to do it.

Poker Face be damned.

“Time’s up, Kaito,” Toichi said.

Before Kaito could respond, the solid form he was holding onto seemed to evaporate in his arms, fading to nothingness. Kaito was thrown off balance and pitched forward. But instead of hitting the ground (wait, where had the floor gone?), he seemed to hover, suspended. There was the sensation that he was moving, but there were no physical signs that he was in motion.

_I miss you, Dad,_ he said, though his words seemed to die on his lips. He just hoped that his father heard them somehow. Smiling sadly to himself, Kaito closed his eyes and let his head lull forward as he waited for whatever was going to happen to just happen.

**_-o-_ **

She thought she saw his face move, could have sworn she heard him make a sound. The cool fingers she held so carefully in her own twitched. The heart monitor began beeping faster.

Leaning forward over him, she waited. He made another noise, one that definitely could not be written off as an oddity of breath or an unusual whirr of a machine. Again, he moved. She drew back quickly for fear he might see her, releasing his hand for fear he might hold onto her.

For all that she had kept watch over him while he was unconscious and all her worrying, she did not want to be there when he awoke. She did not want to see him, and she did not want him to see her.

As he moved again, she turned and fled the room, heading straight for the nurse station nearby. Best to alert them and let them take care of him as he fought his way back to consciousness. For her part, Aoko swore she wouldn’t go back into the room until he was asleep again.

It was safer that way.

**_-o-_ **

One of the doctors still wasn’t quite sure how the young man had managed it, but Kaito was pulling through. His injuries were severe, and he would be hospitalized for quite some time. But the fact remained that he was alive and at the moment it seemed he was going to stay that way. Though the road to total recovery would be very, very long, he was making rapid improvement. Almost too rapid, a few of the nurses whispered.

Still, it was a full week before Nakamori was permitted to enter the room on business. Kaito was sitting up, though he leaned back heavily against the pillows. He still wore a breathing tube, and he still had some difficulty in speaking loudly, but he was conscious and coherent; he watched the inspector enter with a gaze that managed to dance between welcoming and wary.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked quietly.

“This is actually a business visit, Kaito-kun,” Nakamori said. He handed the folder to Kaito, who took it with a startled look. “I’m here to discuss this with you, and I think it’s in your best interest to listen very carefully to what I have to say.”

Kaito opened the folder. “What is it?”

Nakamori took a seat in the vacant chair beside the bed. “I don’t think I need to tell you what your situation is. You’re in a bad place right now. We have every reason and opportunity to put you in jail for a very long time, and the only reason we haven’t had the entire police force standing guard outside your room is because right now if you tried to escape you’d probably start hemorrhaging and collapse in the hallway. That’s straight from your doctor, by the way.”

“I know…”

“Which brings me to the reason I’m here,” Nakamori leaned forward to look at Kaito intently. “I am here to offer you a choice. A deal, one that could benefit all parties involved.”

Now Kaito looked outright suspicious. “What kind of deal?”

“Everything you need to know about it is in that folder, and I suggest you read it very, very carefully before you make a decision, but here’s the general idea,” Nakamori said. “Your choices are as follows. Option one: we go public with your identity. You go to trial, and more than likely go to jail. Your and your father are exposed, and both your names get dragged through the mud. You lose your freedom, and your mother loses her son. We’re all happy. You’re not.”

Kaito nodded.

“Option two: you are a young man who was very tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nakamori watched Kaito’s face intently as he laid the second choice out on the table. “We waited to release your name out of respect for your family’s wishes. When the doctor releases you, you get to go home. You graduate from high school, and you stay relatively free.”

“…relatively free,” Kaito repeated. “What’s the catch?”

“You work for us.”

“What?” Kaito was not in the best of health, and so his masks were shaky; his eyes widened and his jaw dropped; the sharp intake of breath must have been a bad idea because he immediately started coughing and wheezing. Were the situation less precarious, Nakamori might have actually taken some amusement at the fact that he had managed to flap the unflappable.

“The fact is, Kaito-kun, that Kaitou Kid can go places we can’t and can obtain things and information that the police would never be able to get to,” the inspector explained. “Furthermore, Kid’s rather unique skills are ones that could prove useful to law enforcement if properly directed.”

Kaito stared. “So what you’re saying is that my choices are either go to jail…or become a secret agent?”

“…in a nutshell.”

Kaito opened his mouth to say something but Nakamori held up a hand for him to be silent and listen. “Read the papers carefully. Look through them. Think it over. Because you’re under our thumb right now, and you know it. The question is whether or not you can tolerate staying there.” He stood. “I know that even if we put you in jail, you would only stay there as long as you wanted to. And my superiors are very interested in some of your more unique talents.”

“…I’ll read the papers, and I’ll think about it,” Kaito said after a moment.

“Then I’ll be back in a few days for an answer,” Nakamori said. “On a more personal note, how are you feeling?” Privately, the inspector thought the young man still looked like hell.

Kaito’s answer was an unintentional echo of Nakamori’s thoughts. “I feel like hell.”

“The doctors say you’re getting better.”

“I’ll probably make a full recovery. It’s just going to take forever,” Kaito said as cheerfully as one who has been confined to a hospital really can. “I hate being stuck in bed. Ask Mom, she’ll tell you how big of a pain I am when I have to stay indoors and sit still.”

“She’s mentioned that.”

“How’s she holding up? She always tries not to let me see when she’s hurting.”

“She’s doing just fine,” Nakamori said. “I mean that sincerely.”

“Hmm…it’s sort of weird, but you know how people talk about seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and shades of loved ones long since gone and all that stuff?” Kaito managed a chuckle that quickly descended into another coughing fit. “Well, I actually saw that.”

“Did you see anything else?”

“I feel like I did, but I can’t remember…” he said, his expression thoughtful. “And the weirdest part is that I have a craving for a beer. I don’t even drink. Why would I want a beer?” The words were lighthearted, but the emotion behind them was definitely not.

“Having never had a near-death experience, I really can’t say.”

“You’re a real help, Keibu.”

“Just doing my job.”

There was a subject being very carefully danced around throughout the conversation. Both men knew it, and both men were very much aware of it, but neither dared voice it to the other just yet. It just was not the appropriate time for it now.

**_-o-_ **

When Nakamori came next, it was a few days later, just as he had promised. He was surprised and somewhat pleased to see that the folder was open in Kaito’s hand; the young man was reading it. Given the length of time that had passed, Nakamori was fairly certain that this was not the first reading the papers had gone through. Kaitou Kid had always been meticulous, so it stood to reason that Kuroba Kaito shared that trait.

Especially where his freedom was concerned.

Kaito glanced over as the inspector entered the room. “Welcome back.”

“I take it you’ve read everything?” Nakamori said. He phrased it as a question, though it really wasn’t.

“I have. Several times, in fact. It’s quality reading material, let me tell you,” Kaito managed a thin smile. “A few edits and you could market it as an insomnia cure. But you’re not here for me to make jokes, you want to know what I think of this whole business.”

“That’s why they sent me, yes.”

“There are a couple of problems with this arrangement.”

That took Nakamori by surprise. “Problems?”

“I’m assuming that the idea here is to make things look like Kaitou Kid hasn’t been captured and everything is normal, correct? Because if he’s working for the police, some of his contacts might start clamming up, and he could very well be out of luck,” Kaito reasoned.

“That was the idea.”

“Then you need to let me do a heist now and then.”

Kaito could have said many things, but Nakamori couldn’t think of anything else that would have knocked the floor out from under him like that one did. He had to remind himself not to yell, and instead settled on hissing, “A heist? Are you crazy?”

“That’s up for debate, but I do have a reason,” Kaito went on. “If I announce my retirement, then that could limit what I could do for the police. But if I just drop out of sight, then tongues will start wagging, and there’s already enough gossip going around regarding the last heist. I can do work for you, no problem, but I need to be able to do things my way. If you want appearances to stay normal, then I’m going to need to pull a heist once in a while to keep the public happy.”

The worst part of this, Nakamori realized, was that he could not think of a logical way to refute what Kaito was saying. It made perfect sense, and fit squarely into the overall scheme, which was to keep Kid’s activities for the police as secret as possible. “What else?” he asked weakly.

“I accept the idea of working jobs assigned to me,” Kaito said. “I think it’s counterproductive to expect me to work only those jobs, though, don’t you agree? And also, I reserve the right to go about those jobs my own way. If your superiors want my help, then they’ll have to accept that I have my methods. They’ll get their results, just not necessarily by their rules.”

Nakamori raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think they’ll like that.”

“You can put an eagle in a cage, Keibu, but you’ll never get it to eat from your hand. It’ll just resent you for trying,” Kaito said. “Let it fly free while you train it, and you’ll both be much happier for it.”

After a moment, Nakamori sighed and pulled out his phone. “Let me make a call.”

It took a solid twenty minutes of fast talking, and at one point Kaito himself actually took the phone and addressed the angry higher-up on the other end of the line to inform him that he really did do his best work when he could plan things out for himself. Finally, Nakamori hung up and nodded. He looked exhausted. “I have no idea how you did it, Kaito-kun, but…you’ve got your conditions.”

“They’re not really conditions so much as ways of making this deal better for all those involved,” Kaito said wisely. He picked up a pen and made a few edits to the contract before signing his name at the bottom. Nakamori signed as a witness, and took the folder. “I know it’ll take some time before they trust me, but hey, what am I going to do? Run away? My name would be all over the news before I even got on the flight out of town.”

“You made the right choice,” the inspector said as he gathered his things and prepared to leave.

“I certainly hope so,” Kaito said. He hesitated, then spoke again. “How’s Aoko doing?”

That was the topic that neither had wanted to touch during their last conversation. She was the tentative bridge between them, the link in the chain, and her well-being was one of their primary mutual concerns. There was no faking the worry in Kaito’s eyes as he asked about her.

“She’s upset. I know because she hasn’t yelled since you were shot,” Nakamori said. Humorous words in a humorless voice. “She hasn’t come to see you yet, has she?” When Kaito shook his head, the inspector sighed and decided to tell him the truth. “She stayed in here with you the entire time you were unconscious. She comes in while you’re asleep, and leaves when you start to wake up.”

“She doesn’t want to see me.”

“But she’s worried about you.”

“…I understand.”

“Understand what?”

Kaito said nothing. His expression grew drawn, and Nakamori interpreted that as an end to the interview. Thanking the young man again for his cooperation, he left Kaito to sit and think.

**_-o-_ **

His eyes were closed, his breathing was even, and he was not moving.

All fairly solid signs that Kaito was asleep.

Good. That was what Aoko wanted.

It was easier to see him like this and not have to speak to him. Oh, she knew she would have to actually speak to him at some point and straighten things out between the two of them. The problem was that she just wasn’t sure what exactly was entailed in straightening it out. And she suspected she wouldn’t know until the moment actually came.

So for now she was content to sit in the semi-darkness and watch him sleep, keeping vigil over his slumber. He looked as innocent as a newborn. How deceiving looks could truly be, she thought.

She jumped when he shifted and turned his head away from her, and then let out a nervous breath at her own silliness. He wasn’t waking up, even though he was traditionally a very light sleeper, alert at the slightest sound. He was still on medication for pain, and he was recovering from serious injury, so he would sleep more soundly than usual. She was safe.

Sitting where she was in the darkness, with his face turned away from her, she did not see his eyes open in the darkness for a moment and then close again, content in the simple knowledge that she was there and for the moment, at least, she was close.


	3. Encore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating jump to R for this chapter. Trigger warnings for mentions of child abuse and sexual abuse against children. Nothing explicit, but it is alluded to. Reader discretion advised.

“You look tired.”

Nakamori nearly jumped through the ceiling at the voice’s sudden intrusion upon the quiet. He didn’t quite make it up to the ceiling, but merely succeeded in banging his knee on his desk. A few muttered swears later, he straightened up and glanced at the speaker. “Kaito-kun, the door is there for a reason.”

Lounging on the very narrow windowsill, Kuroba Kaito smiled. “But that’s boring.” Neither felt the need to mention that the window Kaito had just appeared through was numerous stories above the ground. It went without saying that the boy never took the path of least resistance.

“Consider your health, then. You haven’t been out of the hospital long. You should still be taking it easy,” Ginzo said. “Those orders are straight from your doctor, if I might remind you. It’s why you haven’t started actively working for us yet.”

This much was true; Nakamori’s superiors had been explicitly told by the doctors that Kuroba Kaito was not to put undue stress on his body until they gave the okay, and they were respecting those instructions. There was no real sense in pushing him too soon and landing him right back in the hospital before they could put him to the real test.

Of the four higher-ups in on the plan, two were cautiously eager to test out the skills of their newest agent and see exactly what kind of good could be wrought from the deal. One was still unsure on the deal, but had admitted that he saw potential and could be convinced. The fourth…

The fourth, a man named Tokishiro, had been on vacation when the deal was struck. His position within the Force had made him privy to the information, and he was absolutely furious at the whole affair. It was his opinion that a criminal was a criminal was a criminal, no exceptions, and Kaitou Kid should have been unmasked before the world and tossed under the jailhouse before the key was deposited in a nearby river. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred yen, do not strike a deal.

The situation was extremely tense and tentative for the moment, to say the least, and all those involved were well aware of it. And unbeknownst to those in the police force, that was precisely the reason that Kaito had come to the office that night.

“I understand, but this really couldn’t wait,” Kaito said. He slid from the windowsill to the floor, made his way around the desk, and took a seat in the chair there, facing Nakamori. “If anything, I’m sort of regretting that I didn’t get this to you sooner. I’m only just starting to get my full mobility back.”

“What is it that’s so important?”

“I have some information for you on the recent kidnappings,” Kaito said grimly, no trace of humor in his voice or expression. He was completely serious, which alone told that he was being truthful.

He also had Nakamori’s undivided attention at the word ‘kidnappings.’ There had been a series of crimes, all involving young children vanishing. The youngest victim had been a six year old boy; the oldest thus far was fourteen. All had been taken from public places: playgrounds, sidewalks on the way home from school, and one even from her own front yard while she was out trying to catch fireflies.

Thus far, a whopping eleven children had gone missing without word or demand from the perpetrators. The kidnappers themselves were daring, but careful, and had left no trace of themselves behind. No one knew where the children were or what had become of them, but any seasoned cop knew that the vast majority of kidnapping victims were killed within the first few hours. Some had been missing for three or four weeks. It was getting harder and harder to keep hope of finding them alive.

The media was in a frenzy, the public was in a panic, and the police force was pouring every available resource it had into the case. Nakamori himself had even been temporarily assigned to assist with the case as there were no Kid heists pending. So he knew plenty about the case in question. And now Kaito sat before him, claiming to have information.

“What have you got?” Nakamori demanded a bit more harshly than he had intended.

If Kaito noticed the agitation (and he probably did), he made no comment on it. He simply said four little words that Nakamori hadn’t dared believe he would hear at this point in the game.

“The children are alive.”

“…Kaito-kun, it’s been weeks,” Nakamori said. “The average kidnapper kills their victim—“

“Within hours, I know. After the first twenty-four hours have gone by, the chances are nearly zilch, though the chance does still exist. I also know that the best chance of solving a crime occurs, usually, within the first seventy-two hours, and in this case it’s been weeks,” Kaito said. “I do pay attention, Keibu. But the fact is that the children are alive, and I know why they were taken and I know where they are. I can’t tell you anything about the who, though.”

“How do you know all this, Kaito-kun? Forgive me for being suspicious, but I have to ask.”

“Understood. I thought this was part of the reason the police wanted to strike this deal with me,” Kaito said. He sat back in his chair. “I can go places you can’t. I can talk to people who won’t speak with you. They trust me, and they will give me information. I have a few informants who wouldn’t dream of talking to the police, not that the police would trust a word they had to say anyway. But they have no reason to lie to me because I’ve earned their trust, sometimes simply by keeping my mouth shut.”

“And they told you all of this.”

“The one I spoke to was quite eager to tell me everything he knew. You forget that there’s a code of honor in the underworld. Those who commit crimes against children are the worst of the worst. They want these guys taken down. Shooting a man who double-crosses you is one thing. Harming a defenseless child is way over the line.”

Nakamori actually gaped. “You sound like you condone this.”

“I don’t necessarily agree with the entire honor code,” Kaito explained. “But I understand it, and to a certain extent I have to abide by it. I’m a high-profile thief, and I go out of my way to avoid hurting people. There are those who respect me, and will help me.”

“Do they know who you are?”

“No. They have not seen my face. But they know me.”

Somehow, Nakamori suspected he would not be getting any actual details on the matter, odd as it was to his mind, and so decided to drop it. “Why are they taking the kids? And why keep them alive without a random demand?”

Kaito actually grimaced. “They’re…god, I don’t even want to say it, but they’re making money off the children another way. More than they could probably ever hope to get from a ransom demand. You’re dealing with the absolute scum of the earth here, Keibu.”

It took Nakamori a moment to get what Kaito really didn’t want to come right out and say. “No…”

“Exactly,” Kaito stood up. “I wanted to let you know what I know, Keibu. And I’m asking you to give me one more day. I’ll bring you and your superiors everything you need to get the children out safely and apprehend the guys behind this. I’ll be back tomorrow night with all the information you need.”

Nakamori opened his mouth to reply, but fell silent when Kaito raised a hand.

“I know it’s a risk, and I don’t like waiting any longer than is necessary. I know they’re kids, Keibu,” Kaito ran a hand through his hair. “But I also don’t want anything to go wrong with this. I really couldn’t care less about what happens to the men who run the establishment, but I care a hell of a lot about what happens to the children.”

Again, the Inspector opened his mouth, but this time he was cut off as Kaito suddenly, magically, was back at the window. “I’ll be back, Keibu, tomorrow night. You can tell your superiors. Tell them I forced you into this, if need be. Trust me this once, and I promise you won’t regret it.”

Before Nakamori could get so much as a word out, Kaito was gone.

**_-o-_ **

Even as good as Kaito was at disguising himself and controlling his emotions, Kaito was having a great deal of trouble keeping his expression in check. The whole situation was so overwhelmingly disgusting that he wanted to vomit. Instead, he pasted that smug sneer of a smirk onto his painted face and let the other man lead him towards the door.

Said other man really could have been any sort of businessman. Nice suit, tie, pleasant air, well-spoken, clean-cut appearance. But here he was, leading what appeared to be another businessman towards a crime of the most sickening nature.

The man was talking about mundane things as he opened the door, letting Kaito see into the tiny room that lay beyond. Well, perhaps room was a bit generous of a term. It was more like a glorified closet with a bed pushed into the back corner. And sitting on that bed was a little girl, with terrified eyes peering at Kaito from under long bangs.

It was the worst Kaito had ever felt.

He thanked the man in a low baritone and waited until the door had closed behind him. He then turned and made a face at the door before muttering under his breath about how disgusting it was. Then he turned his attention to the girl, who was still staring at him in terror.

“Hi,” he said softly in his own voice.

She said nothing.

He knelt down on the floor to be closer to her eye level, careful to keep as much distance between them as possible. The less he had to scare the poor child, the better, although the first thing he was going to do when he got home was take a very long soak in a vat of boiling bleach. Though he was sure not even that would take the feeling away. “Will you tell me your name?”

She hesitated, then said in a voice just barely loud enough for him to hear, “K-Kisa…”

“Kisa-chan, then. How old are you?”

“N-nine...”

Every protective instinct in his body wanted to go over there and give her a hug and tell her it was all right, but mentally he knew that could be disastrous. Best to keep the distance and not touch her at all. He would talk to her, try to keep her calm while he did what he needed to do.

“Kisa-chan, I’m here to help you,” he said quietly. “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not even going to touch you, I promise. I just need to ask you a couple of questions so my friends and I can come and get you out of here and take you home.”

She still looked terrified, but at the word ‘home,’ she leaned forward just the tiniest bit. “R-really?”

“Really.”

He asked her questions, alternating questions about herself with questions about this place, all in that same quiet, gentle voice. What was her family like? How many children were here? Did she participate in any clubs or after-school activities? Could she tell him anything else about the building? Who was her favorite singer? Were all the rooms like this one?

She answered quietly; sometimes she did not know the answer, but she did her best. By the time he finished, at least, there was a little less fear behind her eyes. He imagined that he was not the first to tell her he wouldn’t hurt her, but chances were that he was probably the first to actually carry through on that promise by not touching her.

Kaito took careful notes on what she said and committed as much information as possible to memory. He examined the walls and door carefully, and even hopped up to peek along the tops of the walls that divided the rows of cells, just to make sure. When he was done, he crouched down with his back against the wall, still keeping the full length of the room between them. He had only ventured near her once, to check the outside wall.

A glance at his watch proved that there was still time left, so he smiled. “Do you like stories, Kisa-chan?”

She nodded.

“I know a few. Would you like to hear one? I’ll stay over here, I promise.”

Kisa tilted her head to the side and nodded slowly, uncertainly.

He told her a story he had heard on a trip once, about a prince who saw a firebird in his father’s garden, and went to chase the bird down. There was adventure and magic and ultimately romance, and when he got to the happy ending, he heard his audience of one sigh happily. During the course of the story, Kisa had inched towards the end of her bed, closer to him.

After he finished, Kaito again looked at his watch. His time was more or less up. It was only now that he moved towards her, kneeling down next to her bed to speak to her directly. “Listen to me, Kisa-chan. You just need to hang in there a little longer. We’ll get you out of here.”

“Promise?” she whispered. “I’ll get to go home?”

“You’ll get to go home,” he said. “You can’t tell anyone what we talked about or what I’m doing, though. It has to be a secret, just between us. If someone finds out, it could be a lot of trouble. So I have to ask you one more question. When other people come and see you here and leave, what do you do after they finally go and leave you alone?”

Kisa hesitated, then slid back on her bed to push her back against the wall. She curled up into a tight little ball, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Kaito nodded. “Good girl. You’re very brave.” A bang came at the door, and he stood up. “Just a little longer,” he whispered, not completely startled to see tears spring to her eyes.

With that last mental image to remind him that he was here for a damned good reason, he left her sitting there alone in that room and followed the guard out, pretending to straighten his tie, and chatting amiably about this and that and the other thing.

**_-o-_ **

“Hard at work as ever.”

This time there were three men in the office to jump at the sudden voice from the window. Nakamori glared towards the speaker. “Kaito-kun, I think we had this discussion before. Don’t do that!”

The teenager smiled and slid down from the windowsill to the floor. “But I have a present for you.”

“What kind of present?” Nakamori asked. It was Kaito-kun, he knew, but at the same time, he couldn’t help that little twinge of apprehension. Receiving a present from Kaitou Kid rarely meant anything good, pleasant, not-sticky, or that came out with the first shampoo.

“Gentlemen, I bring you the gift of information.”

There was no mistaking the venom in Tokishiro’s look, but he was not the superior officer in the room at this point. That honor went to Takahashi, who regarded the thief with a bit more thoughtfulness. “What exactly have you brought us information regarding?”

“As promised, I have further news for you on the recent series of kidnappings,” Kaito said.

That got their attention, and now Takahashi’s voice was sharper. Nakamori had told him of the impromptu meeting the night before, and he was not particularly happy about the whole affair. “What exactly did you bring us, Kuroba?”

“I fail to see how anything a thief says can be trusted,” Tokishiro finally spat, seemingly unable to hold his tongue any longer. A look from his superior silenced him for the moment.

Kaito did not even seem to hear the comment. Instead, he simply moved across the room to stand beside Nakamori’s desk; he magically produced a folder from wherever it was that he produced things from and began spreading the contents across the desk. “I asked for one day to gather everything I thought you would need, and I got it.”

The officers crowded around to look. What he had brought them was information of an almost military precision. A map of the building’s location and the surrounding area. A diagram detailing the layout of the building where the children were being held, even including measurements and possible exits. A list of numbers describing how many men were there on guard, how many children, and the like. A second list of names of the people involved, with notes beside some names mentioning rank or position.

There were more details than the seasoned officers had even thought hope for.

“How did you get all this?” Takahashi asked, dumbfounded.

“I went there,” Kaito smiled, though it was humorless. “I wasn’t in any danger, though. I didn’t get as far as I did without being careful and knowing how to case a building. This was just a matter of taking it to the next level. Besides, this sort of person usually knows how to recognize a cop. Since I am not a cop, I didn’t even make a blip on the rader.”

“Tell us everything you know.” It was an order, and one that would not take kindly to disobedience.

Kaito sat down in Nakamori’s desk chair and began to give them a run-down of what he knew, as neatly and consisely as any soldier discussing battle plans. “There are eleven children being held there, each inside their own individual cell. There are some cells still unfilled, which leads me to believe that they’re probably planning to snatch more children. Each cell is as sparse as they come, with just a bed. That’s it. The cells run around the perimeter of the room, with the doors facing inward so whoever’s on guard can see every room. I thought it was odd, seeing as how establishments like this tend to be as private as possible. The guard told me that this was a way to ensure the merchandise remained undamaged. That’s a direct quote, by the way.” There was no mistaking the disgust in his voice at that.

“What else?”

“The front part of the cell reaches almost all the way to the warehouse ceiling,” Kaito went on, “but the walls in between them aren’t quite as high. Presumably that’s because even if a kid managed to make it over the wall dividing one cell from the next, they’d just wind up in another locked room. Takes less supplies that way, I’d imagine. I was told me that there’s a bathing area, and they take all the children back there at least once a day to clean up. My informant said that the bad man told them that they had to stay clean for the benefit of the patrons.”

“Bastards…” Nakamori murmured. His thoughts drifted to Aoko.

“For entrances and exits, there are some small windows near the ceiling that would not be useful for our purposes. One of the ventilation grates on the roof is loose, I checked it myself. That could be knocked out if another entry point is needed. There’s the front door, obviously, which is where the, ah, patrons enter,” Kaito was tallying the points off on his fingers as he said them. “And they sealed most of the big sliding doors where delivery trucks would pull up, but one of them is still usable, though I’m pretty sure they keep it locked. That’s where their quote-unquote ‘merchandise’ is dropped off.”

“Anything else?” Takahashi asked.

“The surrounding area. It’s a warehouse district, so there are plenty of places to hide. I think it would be fairly easy to hide police units in the shadows until it’s time to go in. I would, however, suggest that you have extra men stationed around the building. If it’s easy for the police to hide and wait, it’ll be just as easy for a stray pervert or three to hide and wait if they can make it out of the building. And a few of them do have weapons, so that makes it all the more dangerous and all the more imperative to have surprise on our side, as well as to make sure the children are out of danger’s reach.”

The officers, for their part, were stunned. When he had promised them information, they had expected something that was, well…not this. They had been handed just about everything they needed to plan a successful raid on this place, and the information had been passed to them on a silver platter with a big red bow tied on it. It was almost too good to be true, but then again, with Kaitou Kid, the impossible and the improbable had a habit of becoming the commonplace.

“You’re very thorough,” Takahashi finally managed.

Kaito did not preen or gloat. He simply said, “Thank you. I did have some help, though.”

“What kind of help?”

“One of the children. Her name is Kisa, and she’s nine,” he said. “She has a younger brother who’s five years old. She loves music and softball. Plays second base on her school’s team. She’s the one who told me about the bathing area, amongst other things.”

“You solicited a—“

Kaito’s voice was sharp. “I didn’t touch anyone. I painted myself up and went in disguise to get some information. She told me some things. That’s all. She trusts me because I haven’t laid a hand on her. I told her some stories and showed her a couple of card tricks. You’ll be able to ask her yourself. Trust me, I didn’t feel any better about it than you do.”

He sat back and crossed his arms. “I can go back in there in the same way and make sure the children are safe before your men come in and make the arrests.” When Nakamori opened his mouth, Kaito held up a hand. “It’s a precaution, nothing more. Those poor kids have been traumatized enough.”

Tokishiro was grinding his teeth loudly enough to be heard in the mail room.

“I am asking you to trust me,” Kaito said. “I realize that under the circumstances, you don’t have many reasons to do so. But I have a plan.”

There was a moment as the three officers glanced at each other. It was ludicrous, really, to even consider placing this kind of trust in a man who had made a notorious career out of lying and tricking law enforcement. That knowledge was warring with the fact that innocent lives were potentially in danger. Children, no less.

“Sir, this is insanity—“ Tokishiro started to protest.

“Kuroba,” Takahashi said suddenly, effectively cutting off the complaint. “You will tell us this plan of yours, in great detail. And we will go from there. My decision will be final. Do you understand?”

Kaito’s smile had grown grim. “I understand, sir.”

**_-o-_ **

Organizing the proved to be a very difficult feat indeed, for size, logistics, and for time restraints, as no one involved wanted to wait a second longer than was absolutely necessary to arrest those responsible for the kidnappings and what had come after the kidnappings. The bastards needed to be brought to justice as quickly as possible, and the children needed to be returned home to the safety of their families to hopefully recover and heal.

The warehouse district was exactly as Kaito had described it: very large, and chock full of shadowy areas where a person or two could very easily hide and wait for a chance to escape. The place had to be surrounded, but at the same time, they didn’t want to give their position away, lest their quarry escape or one of the children be caught in the crossfire.

In short, it was a tactical nightmare.

But somehow, thank the gods, the whole thing had come together in record time. The best teams they had were on call and in position, hiding in the same shadows they feared the perpetrators would attempt to use. They were to wait for the signal before engaging. Everything had been mapped out according to the startlingly accurate details their informant had brought them, though said informant was not named to the majority of the force. Most were simply told that the person who had brought them all of this wished to remain anonymous.

Nakamori was on the scene ostensibly because he was the one who the informant had brought the details of the scene to in the first place, and thus was involved in the case, though it was not his usual area of expertise. He stayed near the back with the higher-ups, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible while awaiting what was yet to come. This was a good deal like some of what happened at the average Kid heist, but the stakes were so much higher than he was accustomed to…

The inspector was so lost in his thoughts that he barely heard someone saying his name. When the quiet voice finally registered, he turned around and saw what appeared to be a man in a suit and hat slipping into the shadows between two buildings behind police lines. Curiosity piqued, Nakamori followed, one hand instinctively reaching for his weapon.

Sure enough, when he peered into the darkness, he saw a man he did not recognize wearing a suit standing in the shadows, leaning casually against a wall. He had just opened his mouth to address the man in question when the man spoke first. “Keibu, I know you’re tense and the situation’s stressful, but if Aoko finds out you’ve got cigarettes in your pocket, she’ll have your hide.”

Nakamori let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. “For god’s sake, Kaito-kun, don’t do that.” He took a good look, squinting through the darkness. “That’s…really impressive, actually.”

A slight shine as the dim lights nearby reflected off a grin of white teeth. “This is the man who came into their, um, facility before. A businessman of a rather unpleasant sort, no name attached, and certainly not a cop.” He straightened and adjusted his tie. “And not anyone that would be readily linked to any phantom thieves, either.”

“You’re going in?”

“I have to, don’t I? That’s all part of the plan.”

“I don’t like it, but…well, I guess there’s really no choice at this point.”

“Anything I should know?”

“The teams are waiting for the signal to move in. You shouldn’t be stopped. Just don’t get caught.” How incredibly odd to be saying something like that to the person he had been pursuing for years in an attempt to place the man securely behind bars.

“Excellent. I’ll give your superiors my own signal when the children are in the safest place possible, and while you’re rounding up the baddies, I’ll take my leave,” Kaito said. It was odd how he could discuss something so serious with so much ease and casualness. “Just leave that part to me.” That last was said in a voice completely different from Kaito’s own light tenor.

And as Kaito slipped back and vanished further into the shadows, Nakamori permitted himself a moment to marvel at just how good at all of this the damned kid really was.

**_-o-_ **

Asking if Kisa was available again made Kaito’s skin crawl, but it was part of the character, and this certainly wasn’t the first time he’d had to disguise himself as someone detestable. The answer was affirmative, and accompanied by a knowing smile that suggested he wasn’t the first client to have a ‘favorite’ amidst the so-called ‘merchandise.’

All in all, it was just a lot easier to not think too much about that.

Kaito followed the guard for the second time to the room in question, chatting casually about the weather and a local baseball game. Such mundane topics addressed while innocence was being exchanged for money…beneath his mask, the unshakable Kid was fairly sure that no amount of scrubbing would ever make him feel clean again.

Still, he supposed that was nothing compared to what the poor kids in this place were suffering through.

The door was opened, and he was allowed into the small room for a second time. Behind him, the door closed and locked, securing him inside with the young girl who had been so helpful to him before and given him plenty of information.

Kisa looked at him for a moment with fear written plainly in her dark eyes. Then a flash of recognition, and a tentative sort of relief. She recognized him, and she remembered him, and she knew that she had nothing to fear from him. Still, she kept space between them, but some of the tension left her thin shoulders. “You did come back…” she whispered, like she almost didn’t believe it.

He took a step towards her and knelt down; there was space, but he could speak to her at eye level. “I promised that I would, Kisa-chan, and I always keep my promises.” He made a point of using her name. Giving someone or something a name meant caring, a connection. It made things more personal. “My friends are outside and waiting for me to tell them it’s okay to come in.”

“Soon?” she asked.

“As soon as we get you and the rest of the kids to the safest place in this building,” he said with a smile. “I just need you to trust me a little bit longer, and we’ll be all set.”

She nodded, slowly. “How are we going to get out?”

Kaito reached a hand out towards her, palm up, in an invitation for her to accompany him. “Tell me something, Kisa-chan,” he said, letting his smile grow a bit wider. “Do you believe in magic?”

After a moment of thought, she nodded again. “Yes, I do.” As she spoke, she gingerly put her hand in his.

“That’s how we’re going to escape,” he said. “Magic.” He stood and closed his fingers around hers. “Just close your eyes, and don’t worry. We’re going to do a little magic, that’s all.” He watched as she did as she was told, and began to work a trick he had only figured out that afternoon.

There wasn’t much time, and he had ten more children to gather.

**_-o-_ **

The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Those who had been on missions like this before were not totally alien to the waiting game, but for a few who were newer or had less experience with this kind of activity, it was bordering on torture.

Especially when the vast majority of them were not even totally sure what they were waiting for. All they knew was that they would be given a signal from their superior officers, and that’s when they would go in. How their superior officer would decide on the appropriate time remained a mystery.

For the superior officers in question, it was tense. Nakamori found himself with a cigarette in his hand, not caring overly much if his daughter skinned him alive for it, and Takahashi had taken to jumping at small noises. There was a great deal at stake here tonight. They just needed a signal.

Tick, tick, tick.

Five minutes had passed since Nakamori’s whispered report that the mole had entered the building.

Five minutes because ten.

Fifteen.

The clock had just rolled around to minute number seventeen when something moved by the building in question: a flicker of something jerking about near the roof. The ones heading up the mission leaned forward to see what it was.

A white cloth was streaming from one of the windows, blowing in the night wind like a banner. It had most certainly not been there a moment ago, but now it was displayed proudly for all and sundry to see.

That had to be it.

Takahashi gestured towards a few of his subordinates, who in turn passed the message along. Quickly and silently the teams moved into position to wait for the final signal—to enter, engage, and apprehend.

Showtime.

**_-o-_ **

Kaito had gathered all of the children in what he had reasoned to be the safest place in the building: the bathing area in the back. Nestled in the back corner, it was separated from the rest of the facility by a heavy door, which Kaito had secured. If anything went wrong, the kids wouldn’t have to see it, and the chances of anyone being able to grab one of them was greatly reduced. Now he was keeping them all gathered into the corner, trying as best he could to keep them quiet and calm.

He had left them for a mere moment to crawl up onto one of the dividing walls and hang his sign from one of the high ventilation windows. It would probably be another minute or two before the police moved in, which meant there was still danger. He glanced around the small area.

What Kisa had not mentioned to him, or perhaps had not even noticed, was that there was a door in the back. It was secure, all but sealed shut for obvious reasons, but Kaito wondered if he might be able to pry it open. It would get the kids out of the building and into the waiting arms and safety of protective police custody. Furthermore, it would provide him with his own escape.

His tools were limited, but he hadn’t made it as far as this without knowing how to open things that other people generally did not want to have opened. The nail file extension of a pocket knife served to pry the glue-like putty away from the door, stopping every few seconds to whisper words of reassurance to the frightened children gathered around him. It was like they sensed that safety was very close, and had come to understand that he was the one who would get them there, and so they stayed close.

Finally, he was able to pull the rubbery seal away from the door. That part done, he studied the latch. Not only was it locked, but there appeared to be something jammed in there. Fortunately, locks and the picking thereof were something he could handle in his sleep. He dug his lockpicks out of his pocket and got to work, still whispering those quiet platitudes to eleven children who were fighting very very hard to do as he asked and stay quiet.

Outside, there was a loud crash, followed by the sound of a lot of men shouting and cursing. Doors were being flung open all over the place, accompanied by more yelling and some surprised comments.

Kaito wasn’t terribly surprised at that. Having interrupted some clients in their activities, he had hit them with a tranquilizer dart (a little idea he had taken from a certain detective and modified to meet his own unique needs) and left them unconscious on the floor, taking the terrified child with him.

Kisa had been invaluable in that regard. She was one of them, a victim just like the others. When she said that the man in the brown suit was going to take them through the walls and save them, they were more inclined to listen. Not by much, but enough that they would let him take them out of the room. And now here they were.

At the noise, two of the kids started to cry. Kaito didn’t blame them at all. They were exhausted and scared and upset, and he was fairly sure that he wanted the same thing for them that they wanted for themselves: to go home.

After about thirty seconds of tinkering, there was the beautiful sound of a lock clicking open. His fingers shook a tiny bit as he reached up and turned the knob. A little pressure broke was was left of the seal that had been glued and painted onto the door, and it swung open. A burst of cool night air hit them.

There was a moment where none of them moved.

Then Kaito quickly turned to the children and spoke, not bothering to keep his voice down at this point. “There are police officers outside. They’re here to help you and take you home. They won’t hurt you. Go right to them, tell them who you are, and they’ll get you where you need to be. Run as fast as you can. And don’t be afraid to tell them the truth, all right? They’ll make sure the bad guys get punished. Now let’s get out of here.”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Eleven small pairs of feet started running for dear life towards the newly-lit spotlights. Even from where he was, Kaito heard surprised calls from the officers.

They would be okay, sooner or later. At least they were safe now. That’s what mattered most.

Which meant that it was time for him to make his exit.

Kaito ducked outside, keeping close to the building. He had devised a way out during an earlier visit, one that he was fairly sure would keep him out of the police line of sight. And if he was accosted, he had ways of ensuring his escape. He darted carefully between two buildings, a tiny gap in the police’s wall. Once there, he quickly shed his disguise. The glider was the fastest way to get out of there, and he really wanted to go home.

White really was his color anyway.

As he gathered up his things, he heard a tiny voice. “Mister?”

He whipped around, monocle chain swinging like a deranged pendulum, to look at the speaker. Kisa was staring at him with wide eyes. She must have been looking for their savior, and noticed the movement. The rest of the officers over there were probably too preoccupied with getting the victims to the hospital to notice it.

After a few seconds, Kaitou Kid smiled and bent down far enough to address her at eye level. He put one gloved finger to his lips and winked at her. “Shh…you’d best go back with the others, ne, Kisa-chan?”

Kisa nodded. He was sure she was blushing.

It wasn’t until later that anyone got to ask any questions about the odd raid on the brothel. For starters, no one seemed to know who had hung the white cloth in the window to signal that it was safe to come into the building. Related to that, no one seemed to know who had moved all the children to the safety of the bathing area at the back and eventually gotten them outside.

The children themselves didn’t even seem to know. They just said that the nice man with the nice smile in the brown suit and cool hat had promised them that they would get to go home soon before he took them through the walls to safety.

Only one girl seemed to have any other thoughts on the mysterious savior. She told them that the man had come to visit her once before. He was nice, but she hadn’t realized who he was until after he had taken them outside.

The girl, who gave her name as Kisa, said that they had been rescued by an angel who was nice and who smiled a lot, and who didn’t hurt her, and who told stories about princes and firebirds, and who had a mirror where one eye should be, and who wore all white.


	4. Bows

All things considered, it was sort of a relief for Nakamori-keibu to walk into his office and find Kaito sitting there in one of the chairs, waiting for him. It meant that he wasn’t going to be scared out of his skin when a low voice came from his window.

Of course, the fact that he had been within easy sight of his door during the few minutes he had been out of his office and had not seen his door open told him the story. “Kaito-kun, one of these days I will get you to use the door like a normal person. You might actually enjoy it,” the Inspector said dryly.

“Normal is boring, Keibu. Someday you will understand,” the teenager grinned.

Nakamori crossed the office and sat down. “I’ll have you know that this whole brothel business has the media in an absolute frenzy, and the trial of the kidnappers is going to be one of the biggest we’ve had in years. The police are heroes for solving the case. Yet somehow, the fact that there was an agent on the inside seems to have been missed by all, save one person.”

“Oh?” Kaito arched a brow. “Who’s that?”

“A little girl named Kisa, who swears that an angel in white came in and took her and the other kids through the walls to safety,” Nakamori said, visibly amused. “She was quite taken with you. But she’s safely at home with her family. Same with the other kids.”

That answered the question Kaito had been about to ask. “Good to hear.”

“You’ve also made an impression on my superiors,” the Inspector went on. “Even Tokishiro can’t find a single fault with the way things went down. You planned it out in less time than most police experts could. You did exactly what you said you would, and things went off without a single goddamn hitch, which is more than I can say for ninety-five percent of plans around here.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“They’re pleased with your work, and eager to see what else you can do,” Nakamori said, leaning his elbows on the desk. “It might be a while longer before you win over Tokishiro, but the other three are completely convinced. Don’t screw this up, Kaito-kun, and you’re set.”

“I never screw up, Keibu,” Kaito said with a laugh. “Mostly I just wanted to stop in and ask how things were going and if the kids were okay, but you’ve answered those questions already. Sounds like this will be an easy conviction.”

“Between being caught in the act, firing on police officers, and everything in between, their lawyers are scrambling for a deal. It might take a while, but they’re going down,” Nakamori’s eyes narrowed. “And prison is rarely kind to people who commit crimes against children.”

Kaito nodded. There was a certain code of honor to the criminal underworld. It was not one that people outside it would necessarily grasp, but it existed. Rules. Ethics. Morals of a different sort. There was a structure, a hierarchy to things. And those who would harm children were below the bottom rung, the most detestable of an already seedy world.

Satisfied with the answers he had received, Kaito stood. “I just wanted to check on that. That’s all.”

“You’ve come out of this very well,” the Inspector said as Kaito crossed to the window.

“Perhaps,” Kaito said slowly after a moment. “But there’s still one more thing that needs to be taken care of. And it might very well be the hardest one of all to fix.” As he vanished out the window into the night, Nakamori Ginzo realized that Kaito had not actually said what it was, nor had he let himself be asked about it.

But at the same time, he realized that he already knew exactly what that final loose end was.

**_-o-_ **

When the knock came on the door, Aoko realized that she should have known who it was right away, without having to look. Who else would come calling at this hour of the night? At the same time, it had been a very long time since the person in question had actually knocked on her front door, but still…

She opened the door, one hand moving up to stifle a yawn that froze in her mouth when she took a good look at her visitor. Her hand dropped limply to her side. “Kaito,” she said, startled at how foreign the name suddenly felt on her tongue. “What are you doing here?”

Kuroba Kaito shifted a bit. “I was just checking on you. How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she said in a voice more clipped than she had intended. “I’m sure that matters a great deal to you. You’re the big hero now, even if no one knows it, aren’t you?” She made a mental note to have a word with her mouth about this nasty habit of running off without checking with her brain first. “Eleven children you saved, all but singlehandedly. Not bad for a night’s work.”

So her dad was keeping her in the loop. He couldn’t blame the man for that. “I’m not a hero. Shouldn’t be a hero for doing what you’d like to think any person would have done…” He sighed and leaned against the doorframe. “I’m worried about you.”

“I don’t need your pity,” she said.

“It’s not pity.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss with me? If not, I have a lot of homework to do, and I’m very tired,” she said. She was already kicking herself before the last word was out of her mouth, but at the same time she wanted nothing more than for him to leave, to be gone from her sight.

His expression didn’t change outright, but something flickered. He looked sadder all of a sudden. “I just really wanted to talk to you about…well, about everything that happened, really.” One hand moved to the back of his neck. She recognized that as a nervous gesture.

“What could you possibly have to say to me?” she demanded, voice rising with an anger she wasn’t completely sure she felt. “You lied to me, you tricked me, you used me, and now you want to talk to me? No thank you, Kuroba Kaito. I’m done being played for a fool, and I’m done with the person who made a fool of my father so many times.”

“Aoko—“

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

Before she even realized she was doing it, she had slammed the door. She only comprehended the action when she heard the lock shoot home, sealing the door between them. Not that it truly could have kept him out if he had wanted to come in, but somehow she doubted he would cross that boundary.

Still, her hand had barely left the doorknob before Aoko started to cry.

**_-o-_ **

The sound of the door closing and the lock clicking shut hurt more than any bullet ever could. Kaito stared at the wood paneling in front of his face for a long, long moment, unsure of what to do. There was no way he would go in now, not a chance. But walking away felt like a defeat he wasn’t prepared to accept just yet. So he stood there, debating…

And then his excellent hearing picked up the sound from the other side of the door.

Crying.

He recognized it as Aoko immediately, not that there was anyone else it could have been.

Kaito leaned his ear closer to the door and listened carefully. After a moment, he heard her say something to the door, probably unaware that he was still there, could still hear her, and would act on whatever it was she said. And her words here were muffled, but he understood every one of them.

_“I didn’t mean it…”_

That was all he needed to hear. Making a quick decision, he turned and walked down the stairs, off the porch, and towards the side of the house. This would only take a second, and he had better do it before she went back upstairs. If she caught him, somehow he didn’t think it could end well.

When a tear-streaked Aoko finally picked herself up off the floor by the front door of her house and walked up the stairs with slow, dragging steps, she was surprised to walk into her bedroom and discover that someone else had been there. Or at least, had been to her window.

She crossed the room and picked up the item left on her windowsill like a silent messenger: a single rose, bleached silver-white in the moonlight.

Aoko stuck her head out the window and glanced around for the giver, but saw no one.

**_-o-_ **

It was two roses later that she finally caught him. She waited patiently, silently and out of view of the window until she saw that hand reach up. Then she jumped out and grabbed his wrist. “You know, Kaito, stalking is illegal in most civilized places,” she said dryly, almost amused at the sheepish look on his face.

Even though she knew, deep down, that if he hadn’t wanted her to catch him in the act, she wouldn’t have been able to. Which meant he wanted her to catch him, which probably meant he wanted to talk. That really wasn’t a surprise. She just didn’t know what it was that he wanted to say to her, or what he wanted or expected her to say to him.

He crawled in through the window, though he did not venture into the room. He stayed near the convenient escape route of the window, obviously prepared to beat a hasty retreat if need be. Aoko almost thought it was funny, that the great Kaitou Kid would be so scared of her.

“There is actually something I wanted to say to you,” Aoko said after a moment of silence had passed between them. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while.” She shot a glance at him; he was looking back at her expectantly. She took a deep breath. “Name one thing. I’ll do it.”

That took him by surprise. “What?”

“You saved my father’s life, and I owe you a lot for that,” she went on, squaring her shoulders in preparation for whatever was to come next. “So in exchange for my father’s life, name one favor. Anything you want. I’ll do it.”

Kaito stared at her in blank surprise for a few long moments, long enough for Aoko to get very nervous. When he spoke, it was sudden enough that she jumped. “There’s only one thing I really want from you, Aoko, but…” he chuckled lightly, though there was precious little humor in the sound. “…but I don’t think it’s anything you would want to give me.”

His words sent a cold shudder down her spine, but she resolved not to show it, nor would she back down. “I told you. Name any one favor, and I’ll do it So just say it, okay?”

He reached out and carefully brushed an errant strand of hair away from her forehead, catching it between his long, clever fingers. “…forgive me?”

That gave her a start. There were any number of things she had been expecting, a couple of them nearly unprintable, but that was not one of them. “What?”

“I know I shouldn’t be asking. Don’t really have any right to ask something like that of you, but it’s what I want the most from you, Aoko,” he said. He had slipped into that quiet tone of voice, one he rarely used. It was soft, soothing, bordering on the hypnotic, and somehow it had the power to make her feel like everything was right in the world.

Like she wanted to just forget everything that had gone wrong with him, between them, and just fall into his arms and let things go back to the way they were before.

When she didn’t reply, he smiled. It was like a physical manifestation of that voice, quiet and calming and with a power over her that she could not understand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” He turned away from her, that smile never wavering or sliding from his face, and he headed back towards the window with obvious intent to leave.

The thought of him leaving now broke her heart. “Kaito!” she said his name before she really realized she was doing it. He paused and glanced back at her. She hesitated, then again spoke before she truly grasped the words coming out of her mouth. “What if…I already have?”

If the situation wasn’t so precarious, she might have felt a sense of victory at the fact that she had managed to surprise him, if the goggled look in his eyes was any indication. But at that moment, it just made her want to cry.

And cry she did, to her utter chagrin. The first tear slipped free and ran down her cheek as she repeated herself, helpless to do anything else. “What if I’ve already forgiven you? What then?”

By the time the whole situation caught up with her, there were arms around her and her face was pressed into a blue sweater, and her fingers were clutching desperately at the soft blue fleece. The spell was short lived, though, and she quickly regained control of herself. It almost hurt to step out of the circle of his arms, but she did so and looked at him through clearing eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“…you’ll need to pick another favor,” Aoko said after a moment.

“You meant it,” Kaito said softly, disbelieving. “You forgave me.”

“I don’t know why. But I did. I do.” That wasn’t completely true. She did know why. There were a couple of reasons, but she was determined to keep those close to her heart for the time being. It was not yet time. “So think of something else.”

How strange that she could almost feel like things were how they had once been between them. It was almost like old conversations, where she had been teasing him, demanding he tell her something he wanted for his birthday or Christmas or some such thing. It was almost like she could have woken up and found the whole thing to be a sickening dream.

Kaito visibly thought for a moment before he looked her squarely in the eye. To her surprise, he smiled. A big, wide grin that said it was just plain good to be alive. Before she had time to get worried, he spoke up. “Let me take you flying.”

“…what?”

“Let me taking you flying.”

**_-o-_ **

Aoko swallowed hard and again peered down over the edge of the skyscraper’s roof. It was a really, really long way down, no matter which way she looked at it. She stepped back again, wrapping her arms around herself against the wind and her own nerves. Agreeing to this was starting to seem like it had been a very bad idea. “Kaito, I’m not so sure about this anymore.”

“Why not?”

When she turned around, she was startled to realized that sometime in the thirty seconds between them arriving on the rooftop and her looking at him now, he had changed clothes. When he had come to get her for this little outing, he had been neatly dressed in a suit, sans tie. Now he was Kaitou Kid, the white light of the moon glinting off the circle of his monocle.

Aoko swallowed hard. It was like seeing him here and now, in that outfit, had finally driven home the truth. He was Kaitou Kid, and she had agreed to put her life in his hands and let him carry her off into the night sky. Only now did it seem truly real to her.

At her stare, he shrugged. “How else would I take you flying?”

She glanced away quickly. “I know. But—“

A wave of one white-gloved hand. “You don’t have to explain anything. But thank you for agreeing to this, Aoko. It does mean a lot to me.” A dazzling smile that shone through the darkness and had probably melted hearts far harder than hers.

Her eyes drifted back towards the edge of the roof they were about to jump off. “I’m starting to really regret letting you buy me dinner tonight, Kaito. Because I’m really not sure that salad is going to stay where it’s supposed to be.” Her stomach was already turning at the whole thing, and they hadn’t even moved over towards the edge of the roof.

She did, however, spare a moment to be grateful that she had possessed the common sense to wear pants for this little adventure. Pants were her friend. Pants were her companions. Pants would prevent Kaito from having more fun with this than he was really entitled to.

One hand touched her arm, guiding her towards the precipice. She shivered slightly, though whether it was from the sensual touch of smooth silk against her arm or just the fact that it was his hand she wasn’t sure. Eventually she decided that it was because of the slight chill in the air and left it at that. But she did not resist, and let him move her right up to the edge. Her toes stopped perfectly in line with the end of the roof.

Again Aoko looked down, and again she had second, third, fourth, fifth, and twentieth thoughts, all in rapid succession and all more elaborately fatal than the one before. “Kaito, I don’t think I can do this.” She sort of hated herself for saying that, especially after she had promised him that she would do any one favor. She didn’t want to break that promise, and yet she truly wasn’t sure that she could let herself step over the edge and drop like that.

Behind her, she heard Kaito chuckle. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Easy for you to say. I’m going to drop like a brick,” Aoko swallowed hard. Her heart was making a frantic attempt to jump up into her throat, and she was fairly sure that her stomach was no longer where it was truly supposed to be.

One arm slid around her waist; the other came to rest on her shoulder, and she was pulled back ever so slightly against a solid body. There was a warm breath, tickling the back of her neck. And then Kaito’s voice was in her ear. “Do you really think I would let you fall?”

Try as she might, she couldn’t even truly entertain the thought. “No…”

“Then don’t be afraid,” he said in that same soothing voice. His hold on her hadn’t loosened in the slightest. “I wouldn’t have brought you up here if I thought there was even the slightest chance it might put you in danger. There’s a reason I wanted to do this with you, and you’ll see what it is in just a minute. Just hold onto me, and you’ll be fine.”

She felt something else around her waist, and realized that he had actually anchored her to him. It made her feel better, if a bit silly. He wouldn’t let her fall. Now if she could just get past the fact that she seemed to have developed a rather sudden fear of heights…

“Ready?” he asked.

“No…” Again, her dinner was threatening to make an unscheduled reappearance.

“Aoko, I’m not moving until you say it’s all right,” Kaito said. Now he sounded just the tiniest bit exasperated. “And I warn you, I have no real qualms about standing here all night.”

“You’re sure it’ll hold the weight of two?” she asked after a moment.

“It has before.”

She swallowed hard in an attempt to dislodge a lump that had taken up residence there. As frightened as she was, she was also curious. She wanted to know why Kaito liked flying so much, and why he was so eager to share this with her. He had said she would understand once the wind was beneath their wings, but she just had to work up the nerve to take that step and take the plunge.

Behind her, he was waiting patiently, calmly, for her explicit permission. If it came down to it, he would not force her off the roof and into the arms of gravity. Somehow, that gave her a bit of courage.

Aoko took one more deep breath and barely managed to choke out a single word: “Okay.”

He tensed behind her, hesitated. And just when she was about to open her mouth to change her mind, she felt him move. He tightened his hold on her, pushed her forward slightly, leaned into her—

And just as Aoko started to scream that maybe it wasn’t okay, they were off the roof and plunging into the embrace of the night wind, towards the ground. Which was coming up to meet them far more quickly than Aoko would have liked. Really, he couldn’t possibly get the glider out fast enough to stop them from hitting the pavement, could he?

Aoko heard a scream tear from her mouth, and she closed her eyes. Just then, she felt Kaito tense again (how could he be so relaxed in the first place that tension would be noticeable?), and then there was a pull and they were jerking up towards the sky and away from the ground and the pavement and the inevitable messy splatty death—

And then there was just the wind in her hair and Kaito’s arms around her and Kaito’s laugh in her ears.

“You can open your eyes now,” he whispered.

She obediently did so, and was immediately happy that she did. It was a clear night over the city, and the result was almost like a light show. Below them, the artificial lights of the city with its cars and skyscrapers and towers. Above them, the stars and the moon and the guiding lights of the heavens.

For a moment, Aoko forgot to breathe.

And for once, Kaito didn’t tease her about it. He just asked her a question. “Do you see why I wanted to show this to you?” She could actually hear the smile in his voice. It was easy to forget that she was technically in the arms of a wanted fugitive, being held by a man she cared for deeply while he was wearing the guise of the man she hated most as they flew without true wings.

Tonight was a night for paradoxes, it seemed.

For now, she pushed them from her mind and just took in the sight for what it was: magic of a sort both real and fantastic. It was easily one of the most beautiful things she had ever borne witness to. And somehow, sharing it with him made it all the more wonderful. Not that she would actually so, of course.

Another of those light chuckles against her ear. “Do you like it?”

“Kaito, this is wonderful…” she said. She wanted to say more, but the rest of the words seemed to get lost in her mouth. It wasn’t until a moment later that she realized she was holding onto him a bit more tightly, keeping him a bit closer. It was all perfectly comfortable, and any fears of falling or being dropped had long since fled from her mind.

All too soon, she heard him sigh. “I think we need to land. We’re losing altitude.” Kaito hadn’t said too much during their flight, instead acting as a silent observer to her reactions as she took in an entirely different vantage point on the world around her.

Aoko nodded, though not without regret. “All right…”

A smile full of hope. “We can go again sometime, if you want?”

A smile in return. “I’d like that.” She glanced down and realized that they were, indeed, getting very close to the ground. “Do you know where we’re going to land?” It was only now that she began to recall once again that they were heading towards the earth from a very high distance, and there was the potential for injury. Still, nothing had gone wrong yet. Best to just put her trust in Kaito.

“I do, actually. Mapped this out yesterday,” he said. “You should recognize the place, too.” He paused, then grinned at her. “How do you feel about a rolling landing?”

“…I can handle it.”

“Great. Then get ready to do a barrel roll.”

The ground was coming, coming…and then the glider was gone and she was falling for just a moment before she hit the earth. She felt and smelled grass and dirt, and instinctively pulled her arms in as tightly as possible as she rolled across the uneven ground, coming to a stop several meters away from her first point of impact. She was not harmed; rather, the whole thing had actually been sort of fun.

She heard Kaito land with a soft grunt and the small sound effects of his own journey to a stop. She sensed, rather than saw, that he was laying next to her. Her eyes were firmly fixated on the star-filled sky above them, the constellations partially obscured by the shadows of the trees overlooking the area. It was a beautiful night.

When Aoko lifted her head to look at Kaito, she realized that the Kaitou Kid uniform had vanished. He was back in the same dark blue suit he had been wearing when they had set out on this little evening adventure. There was nothing to indicate that he was anything other than a normal young man out on a normal date with a normal young woman.

…and good heavens had she really just thought of this outing as a date?

Kaito was already getting up and brushing himself off. He grinned and offered her a hand, which she accepted. “Sorry that was a little bit rough. Landing is always the worst part of that.”

Aoko kept her hold on his hand for a second longer than she really had to. “Kaito…thank you for this.”

He smiled, then glanced past her, over her shoulder towards the space behind her. “Do you recognize where we are, Aoko?”

She turned automatically, and found herself staring at a playground. The equipment was old and worn, nestled in a tree-lined area on the edge of the residential area where they both lived. It was a place she knew very well, though it was somewhere she hadn’t actually come in a very long time. “This is the park,” she said slowly. “We used to play here all the time when we were kids.”

“Dad brought us here a lot, do you remember?” he asked.

“This is where I learned how to jump off a swing. Nearly broke my leg the first time,” Aoko said. She had started walking towards the playground equipment, barely realizing she was doing it. “I landed wrong.” One hand reached out to touch the rusty chain, and she turned, letting herself sink down into the swing. It creaked slightly in protest, but held her weight.

Kaito had followed her, and sat down in the swing beside hers. “I remember that. Or remember how it was sort of a personal mission to try and swing all the way over the bar?” He glanced up at the metal beam from which the swings hung. “Supposedly, you would either turn yourself inside out, or you’d wind up in some sort of a backwards dimension or something if you did it.”

“No one ever managed it,” she grinned. “No, my favorite was definitely jumping from the swing when it was at the highest point you could get it to. Then for a second or two, you could just fly.” A happy sigh. “When you’re six years old, that’s pretty awesome stuff.” She dug her toes into the ground and started herself swinging, not a lot but enough to make the old swing set groan.

Kaito stood up and moved behind her. She didn’t even attempt to watch him move; she knew what he was going to do the instant he stood up, and she was right. Two hands touched her back and pressed, sending her swinging forward with a big more vigor than before. She went up and then back again. Once again, those hands were on her back, pushing again.

Leave it to Kaito to think a good date idea was pushing her on a swing.

“I remember that it took you forever to learn how to pump your legs on a swing,” he said.

“I know. I just couldn’t get the hang of it. It felt like I was just kicking and not really getting anywhere,” she admitted. “It was a while before I realized that you had to get the whole body into it and lean back and time the push so you could really get some air.”

“The physics of the playground,” Kaito said.

“If only high school physics could be that entertaining.”

They fell silent for a while, the only sound the creak of the swing set and the soft whoosh of displaced air as she traveled time and time again in that swinging arc. But after a few minutes of this, Kaito moved again, stepping around her to watch as she let herself slow down, coming almost to a complete stop. He caught her before she stopped entirely, though, putting his hands on the chains and pushing her swing back until they were at the same eye level. He was supporting her like that; her toes were barely touching the dirt.

“Did you enjoy tonight?” he asked quietly.

“I did,” she said. She glanced down, then back up at him, startled to feel herself smile. “Kaito, I don’t trust you right now. You know why, and I think you understand why. You hurt me very, very deeply, and it’s going to take some time before I really get over it. But try as I might, I can’t seem to hate you.”

He did not speak, seeming to sense that she was not finished yet.

“I’ve been avoiding you because I wanted to do the right thing, but try as I might, I just could never quite figure out what the right thing is. And you know what? I still don’t know. I don’t know if there is a right thing for me to do in this situation,” she tilted her head back and looked up towards the stars. “No matter which way I go, I betray someone or something, be it my friend, my father, or my principles.”

“I always figured I’d lose,” he admitted.

“But then I sort of realized it while we were flying,” she went on, her eyes still cast skyward. “If you’re doing this and working for the police, then…we’re on the same side again. I know it sound simplistic, but you’re working with my dad. With the police. And you saved those kids, Kaito. Not to mention the fact that I know you better than anyone else. I know you’re not a bad person.”

“…but this is very bad behavior?”

“Extremely bad,” she laughed. Then her smile grew a bit more somber. “I don’t trust you. It’s going to be a very long time before you can say something to me and I take it at face value. I’ll be questioning you a lot, everything you say and do. So I wanted you to know that, and understand that…” She took a deep breath, “…and decide if you think it’s worth it.”

Kaito was silent a moment. “If it’s worth it to stick around and regain your trust, you mean?”

“It could take a long time…”

“But it’s possible?”

She was a bit surprised at how eagerly he asked that question. “Yes, Kaito, it is.”

His grin was as brilliant as the moon. “Tell me when the moment comes, okay? I’ll still be here, and I’ll make sure I throw a really big party.” He was joking, of course, but she knew him well enough to understand what was going on behind the teasing words. He was thrilled.

“I’ll tell you,” she said. She paused, then said, “What are you thinking right now?”

“Just thinking about what should happen now,” he said.

Aoko tilted her head to the side. Several possibilities flickered through her mind, and she decided that since they were this far into it, she might as well just be honest. “If you keep pushing me on the swing, I’ll come up with more memories from when we were kids. If you take me for a walk, I’ll hold your hand.” She hesitated for a fraction of a second before she added, in a much softer voice, “And if you kiss me, I’ll kiss you back.”

There was a beat of startled quiet between them.

Then Kaito leaned his head forward ever so slightly, pausing mere centimeters from making contact. “You’re sure about this?” he asked, the concern in his voice mixed with something she could not name.

“I don’t trust you right now, Kaito,” she said. “But I will trust you again someday.” Someday. It seemed to describe a time in the distant future, and yet for the way things were going tonight, it could very well be tomorrow morning.

That statement seemed to be all the reassurance he needed. Kaito kept one hand on the swing chain, and moved the other to touch her cheek. He closed the distance between them and kissed her.

And true to her word, Aoko kissed him back.

**_-o-_ **

It was several weeks later, after the raid on the brothel, after the trial of the kidnappers, and after a very special date in which two heartbroken young people found each other again that Nakamori Ginzo walked into his office to begin work for the day.

And found a note on his desk with a very familiar doodle on it, smirking at him.


End file.
